Profitability in the United States has been rising since the early 1980s, and by 1997 was nearing its postwar peak in the mid-1960s. The profit share has also recovered from its postwar low in the early 1970s. In this paper, I examine the role of the change in the profit share and capital...

Inheritances are often regarded as a societal "evil," enabling great fortunes to be passed from one generation to another, thus exacerbating wealth inequality and reducing wealth mobility. Discussions of inheritances in America bring to mind the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and "trust fund...

I find that median wealth plummeted over the years 2007 to 2010, and by 2010 was at its lowest level since 1969. The inequality of net worth, after almost two decades of little movement, was up sharply from 2007 to 2010. Relative indebtedness continued to expand from 2007 to 2010, particularly...

This article investigates wealth trends from 1983 to 2010. The most telling finding is that median wealth plummeted by 47 percent over the years from 2007 to 2010. The inequality of net worth, following two decades of little movement, was up sharply between 2007 and 2010. Relative indebtedness...

Existing empirical schemas of class structure do not specify the capitalist class in an adequate manner. We propose a schema in which the specification of capitalist households is based on wealth thresholds. Individuals in non-capitalist households are assigned class locations based on their...

This book challenges the conventional wisdom that greater schooling and skill improvement leads to higher wages, that income inequality falls with wider access to schooling, and that the Information Technology revolution will re-ignite worker pay. Indeed, the econometric results provide no...

This book is a collection of original articles that view the current state of knowledge about the convergence hypothesis.

One of the most dramatic changes in the retirement income system over the last three decades has been a decline in traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plans and a corresponding rise in defined contribution (DC) pensions. Have workers benefited from this change? Using data from the Survey of...

[eng] An illustrative disequilibrium model of productivity growth is used to show that neither bounded rationality nor disequilibrium at the micro level is necessary for the economy as a whole to be in a continuing state of disequilibrium. The model shows how the interac­tion of productivity...